


Warring Minds

by SoftButchCassidy



Series: Aurora and Mikris (and friends!) [13]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Between season of dawn and worthy, Character Development, Mentions of body horror and SIVA possession, Multi, aka cas is restarting his titan again, but lesbians. i want lesbians., xen will still show up in fics tho!! i love them too much and they have more development to get to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoftButchCassidy/pseuds/SoftButchCassidy
Summary: Xenophon can't take it anymore. Asher is dying. They have one hope left. Rasputin won't say where the Crypt is, but Xenophon is going to find it.  But they couldn't predict what  would  shake the system.  Rasputin has more pressing matters.With Xenophon gone, Aurora's fireteam is weak. Saladin has a solution... a solution who would rather tear Rasputin apart. But even she knows the danger, and agrees to put aside her hatred of the Warmind to help.
Relationships: Asher Mir/Original Character(s), Female Guardian/Original Fallen | Eliksni Character(s)
Series: Aurora and Mikris (and friends!) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1496270
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Warring Minds

**Author's Note:**

> nothin like super duper actiony happens lol its just plot stuff uwu im restarting my titan again bc i want lesbian!!!!!  
> also meet riona she's gay and a bastard and i love her

The air was cold and dry. It was always cold and dry here. 

“Ana.”

The Hunter hummed in question, eyes narrowed at the console in front of her. When Xenophon didn’t respond, she looked over. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Xen picked at the gun in their lap. SIVA nanites danced over their fingertips. “Why won’t he tell anyone where the Crypt is?”

Ana frowned. Her hands stilled on the console. “He doesn’t really want to tell anyone much of anything,” she admitted.

“Yeah,” Xen said. They sighed. “We know. But… if he’s made to protect humanity… wouldn’t letting us restore the exo program help?”

“Maybe it’s too dangerous,” she said. “I mean… no offense, but look at you.”

They chuckled dryly and sat back. “Yeah, okay. We’re kind of a hot mess, that’s true. But then again, it’s not really normal for an exo to be like, half Vex, so we’re the exception.”

Ana crossed her arms in thought. “I’ve asked a couple times… and I know a lot of people have. You, Aurora, Ikora, Osiris… even Cayde…” Her face fell. “I’m trying, Xen. I know what it means to you.”

Xen drew their knee closer, an ache cutting deep. “We don’t want him to die,” they whispered. “We love him. I love him.”

Ana sat down beside them. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s not fair. How come I get to be okay, but he has to suffer through what I didn’t?”

“I don’t know, Atlas.”

Atlas tightened his hands on Aurora’s gun and felt a glitch in his modulator. His tail curled and flicked with an angry fear. “He won’t even tell me. And I know he knows! He knows what I’m asking, and I know he knows the answer! He just-- just--”

Ana draped an arm around her friend and grasped his hand in hers. “I wish I knew the answer,” she said. “I built him. But he won’t tell me everything, either.”

Atlas sighed again and mumbled something.

Ana frowned. “What?”

He looked down at her and repeated it. 

“You know Russian?”

“No.” Atlas blinked. “Was I speaking Russian?”

“Yeah.” Ana knit her brow. “‘I define the reality of my own existence’. That’s… what Rasputin said to Aurora and Zavala and me, when we stopped the Worm…”

“It wasn’t the real one,” Atlas said. His voice was glitched, accent heavier. 

“I know. We didn’t kill a worm god that easily.” She shook her head. “Why did you say that, Atlas?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t…” He pressed a hand to his head. “Ow.”

“Let me see your hand.”

He let her take his arm. She pressed into his wrist to free one of his data chips.

She went still and cold as the ice around them.

“What is it?”

Ana held up the chip.

Atlas’ hand shook slightly as he gingerly took it back. The mark was made with SIVA, but it wasn’t the SIVA symbol. It was Rasputin’s.

“He’s in your neuromap,” Ana whispered in horror. “Atlas. Xen. Rasputin used SIVA to integrate himself into you.”

“Motherfucker.”

Ana’s eyes were wide, frantic. “I-- I don’t know what I can… how to help, I… you’ve already got so much, with the Vex, but Rasputin, too, I can’t…”

Xenophon slid the chip back into their wrist. “Two can play at this game, you bastard,” they yelled at the ceiling. “You wanna live in our head, too? Huh? Welcome to the party!”

“Xen--”

Xenophon stood up, face grim. “We’re gonna find it. We will not let Asher die.” They shouldered Outbreak and said something clearly directed at the Warmind.

Ana scrambled upright. “Wait, Xen,” she pleaded. “You can’t just run off!”

“We can’t just stand around--”

“I know, I’m not saying that.” She took a breath. “Tell Aurora and Zavrik, at least, okay? I know she’ll support you. She’s looked, too. They’re your fireteam.”

Xenophon looked down. “Yeah… they’re great, we work together so well, it’s just…”

“They’ll understand,” she said gently. “They can help.”

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” They smiled a little. “Ana… thanks.”

She beamed at them. “And I’ll do whatever I can to help, too! We’re a team, Atlas.”

  
  


“What the fuck do you mean?!” 

Osiris paced across the floor of the Iron Temple, hands clasped. Solar energy rolled thick from him, flickering with his Echoes. “I mean,” he said, “exactly what I said.”

Aurora looked alarmed at Saladin and Misraaks. “But I destroyed it.”

“No, we didn’t,” Saffron said. “We disabled its weapon, but destroying it… would’ve set off a chain reaction.”

“That’s what Sloane said…”

Zavala sighed, watching the exiled Warlock. “Regardless, it’s a problem that we need to deal with now,” he said.

“We are not going to go to  _ him  _ for help,” Saladin snapped.

“I don’t like it either,” Zavala interrupted. “I agree with you, Saladin, we can’t trust him.”

“But he is the only chance we have,” Osiris said, looking over. He sounded resigned. “We don’t have the firepower to destroy it ourselves. Not without causing something worse.”

“What makes you think he’ll cooperate?” Saladin growled. 

“I don’t,” Osiris said. He shook his head, slowing to a halt. “I don’t know. And that’s the part that terrifies me. For as much as I have seen, as many timelines as I have walked, there are answers that I can never know. Truths I can never see.”

Aurora shivered at the tone of his voice. Osiris, afraid… she looked over at Misraaks in concern. “Misraaks? How much of this are you getting?”

Misraaks shifted when the other Guardians looked to him. “Enough,” he rumbled. “I understand… what is happening. This tactic… foolish. But effective. Cabal desperate for revenge. But Warmind… not safe.” He cocked his head and switched to Eliksni. “Aurora, your weapon, the one that we recovered from the Devils. The one you gifted to Xenophon. The Self-Claimed-Machine-God created it. You know of the danger.”

“I do,” she said, soft, serious. The memory of Gheleon, Jolder, Felwinter, charging her with SIVA puppeting their corpses… “I know what he can do. What he’s willing to do.”

“Is this the best course of action?”

“I don’t have an answer.”

Misraaks took a breath and shook his head. He returned to English. “I trust what you believe is best,” he said. “What you decide, you have House of Light support.”

Osiris flicked at his Vex cubes and grunted in frustration. “Damned Cabal! We don’t have time to think of another way, no matter how many timelines I check. This is dangerous. But it is our best and only option.”

“What makes you think he’ll want to help?” Saladin asked.

“He was originally built as a savior to humanity,” Zavala said reluctantly. “If this threatens all of humanity…”

The doors rumbled.

Everyone turned with weapons raising.

A figure stood silhouetted in the opening door. Their footsteps were slow, precise. 

“Once more,” said a woman’s voice, deep and grave, collected and intense, richly accented. “Once more you request I revisit that which I seek to destroy. That I look to that wretched machine. And once more I am foolish enough to agree.”

Saladin straightened. “Lady Riona.”

The woman approached. Aurora couldn’t place her Light. Solar, certainly. Something like a Warlock and a Titan? She was older, refined, and had a hard look about her. She stared evenly at Saladin. “Were I to have my way,” she said coldly, “I would tear every wire from that beast with my bare hands.”

“An opinion that I share,” Saladin said. “That’s why I called on you for help.”

Riona scoffed softly and flicked her amber eyes to each person. She held herself tall and straight, an air of authority washing out from her. “My heart demands we destroy Rasputin,” she said. “But I know that this… new threat is beyond what we are currently capable of preventing.”

“It is impossible,” Osiris agreed. “I’ve checked thousands of times. We can’t do it without the Warmind.”

Her mouth flattened. “Aye. I know that Rasputin will help. But it will cost us. Perhaps not now, but someday, we will pay.”

“We’ve paid enough,” Saladin muttered.

Riona flexed her arm. Aurora started. The mechanics of the prosthetic were familiar. 

Misraaks clicked his mandibles, noticing the same thing. It caught the strange woman’s attention, and she looked up at the Kell. 

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Saladin, of all people to associate with Eliksni, you would be one of the last I would expect.”

Saladin shook his head. “It’s not important, Riona, we’re not talking about them--”

Riona spoke Eliksni, jarring Aurora and Misraaks. “I don’t recognize your banners. You have the air of a Kell.”

“You speak like a King,” Misraaks countered. He tipped his head. “I am Kell of the House of Light.”

Riona nodded once. She glanced toward Aurora. She returned to English. “And… you are the Hero, I presume. God-slayer, Plane-walker. You are the one who put rest to the Iron Lords.”

“I destroyed the replication chamber in the Seraphim Vault,” Aurora agreed.

Riona didn’t blink. “So you saw. You know what Rasputin can do. What he is willing to do.”

Aurora felt sick. She nodded slowly. Her own words mimicked back at her.

A flicker of something almost soft, sympathetic, touched Riona’s face. “I regret that I was not there to help,” she said, quieter. “I was… afraid. I could not stomach the thought of facing it again.”

Aurora winced. “You… you were there the first time?”

“Lady Riona,” Saladin interrupted, “was an Iron Lord, too. She came with us to the chamber.”

“I thought everyone lost,” Riona said. “I watched them dying.”

Saladin shook his head. “Riona, I don’t blame you for leaving, or Efrideet--”

“Enough,” she snapped. She regained her composure. “It is done.”

“Will you help?”

Riona eyed the Guardians and Misraaks. “Have I another choice? I either help that which I would rather end, or all life and Light is destroyed. Enemy of my enemy.”

“Thank you,” Osiris said softly. He closed his hand around the cubes.

“Aurora,” Saladin said. “I know that Xenophon has left your fireteam.”

Aurora nodded. “They’re trying to save Asher. With the whole… all this stuff, though, they’re gonna help, too, from where they can. Especially with the… the weird brain thing. And Ana’s checking in with them.”

“I asked Riona to take their place, at least for a while.”

Aurora frowned at Saladin and eyed Riona. “Are you a Titan?”

“I do not follow the pathways that Guardians walk,” she said. “I have been called many things. Fireborn, Empyreal Warden, Seigebreaker, Sundancer. I have flown on wings of flame and crushed my enemies with burning metal. I care not for any contemporary labels. However, for simplicity’s sake… I can efficiently utilize Light in a manner Titans are familiar with.”

Aurora shook her head. “Uh-huh. ‘Kay.” She crossed both pairs of arms.

Riona’s brow came together, just slightly. “You are part of this new House.”

“Mhm. A Baron. My wife is the Ambassador.”

Something new entered her expression. She spoke softer Eliksni. “We have something in common, then.”

Aurora grinned slowly. Misraaks straightened with a surprised chirp.

Osiris sighed. “If pleasantries are done, please,” he said. “Need I remind you all that there is a massive alien ship built to destroy suns currently hurtling toward the Traveler?”

Zavala stepped forward. “We need a more formative plan,” he said. “If we have no other choice but to empower the Warmind, we’ll need to mobilize as many Guardians as we can.” He held out his hand for his Ghost. “Is Ana ready?”

“Holocall primed,” the Ghost answered. 

“Patch her through.”

The Ghost turned and projected a glow. It took a shape, flickered, and then a projection of Ana Bray stood among them. She gave a tight grin. “Hey,” she greeted.

“Hi, Ana,” Aurora said. 

Osiris’ Echoes flickered from him. “Were it safer, we would have met there,” he said.

Ana waved him off. “This is fine. We’ll figure things out. As long as we don’t all die. Guess I’m gonna kinda spearhead this, huh? Liason for the Warmind and all that.”

“You know him better than anyone else,” Zavala said. “If anyone can request his help without raising his ire, it’s you, Anastasia.”

She nodded and cracked her knuckles. She bent forward over a console that they couldn’t see. “Alright. Well. Let’s get to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> come stop by my tumblr @lesbianeliksni


End file.
